To be shocked that 16 year old didn't know about apartheid

[biddlybop]

Recently, I was having a conversation with a teen in the family and mentioned apartheid (think we were talking about films and books based on true events). They asked what apartheid was. I explained, and they had never heard of it.

I was genuinely shocked. We were taught about it in school - in both history, and English. I'm 30, so I wasn't educated decades ago.

Is this not in the curriculum anymore, or is it just her school? I think it's really important that young people are taught about these events, especially as racism is still such a problem.

This is an example of what may well happen if society "cancels" people rather than allowing people to hear opposing views and discuss them.

This kind of thing is the sort of knowledge parents should be imparting to their own children. How on earth can a child get to 16 and NEVER have been made aware of the manifestations of inequality by his own parents? What the bloody hell do people talk about with their kids?

Just how much time do you actually think school have to teach history? You should also bear in mind that the history curriculum is heavily skewed towards British history and then the World Wars.

It's a lack of social and intellectual rigour within your own family. Not the school.

Most of us in our 40’s lived through it, it wasn’t history exactly. I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of robin island live. I went to an amnesty concert at Wembley to help end apartheid. It was on the news regularly. It’s still quite recent “history” really so not a massive surprise it wasn’t immediately put on the national curriculum for history the moment it ended. 30 year olds are probably a bit too young to remember living through it.

If you're thirty, you were at school at least a decade ago. And at a time when Apartheid was a very recent issue for the staff, in the same way for staff now it would be 9/11.

As a history graduate, I have to say YABU. I get so annoyed when people expect me to know ALL history, because I studied a bit of it.

And though I do agree that we ought to learn from history, there's something to be said for forgetting some of it. History is hugely accessible, relatable and "present" via the Internet. I'm not sure that's entirely helpful to learning from it when so many seem eager to rehash it.

What exactly are the "rights" of apartheid ? I'd be curious to know. After all, balance and all that. There must have been some good ?

My grandfather thought putting Mandela in prison was absolutely the right thing because he was a communist and terrorist, the white minority were terrified of what would happen if apartheid was removed. And this is why it's important to teach about South Africa and Britain's part in its history, it's too easy to other people from the past who don't have 21st century values but if we don't understand why apartheid existed we can't stop it happening again.

I learned about it in school in the 80/90s. we watched Cry Freedom about Steve Biko.
But there is limited room in the curriculum, today I might feel that the Transatlantic slave trade and the Windrush might be higher priority to cover in terms of treatment of Black people. And, as a previous poster said, partition of India is important to understand too in terms of our society here in the UK.

Well, it was "good" if you were white, because it meant the only people competing for jobs, property etc, were also white. But that's "good" in the same sense that slavery was good for plantation owners, because it meant plentiful, cheap labour, or "good" in the sense of the Third Reich, as long as you weren't Jewish or gay or communist. I don't think you could argue any of those were good per se, though, even if some individuals massively benefitted. But there are plenty of places in the world where one group is still set higher than others for one reason or another, so it's not like we learn.

YANBU. I don't remember doing it at school but I'd consider it part of general knowledge!

English teacher, and also History now ... from 90s until about ten years ago, the GCSE Lit anthologies I used included 'poems from different cultures,' so apartheid came up. And Mandela was in the news, so that made it current. I've used the poems with Y7-9 in the past, but not recently, so I suppose that opportunity has gone.

I only teach GCSE at History, so content pretty much prescribed. I teach Crime, so I do talk about social class, feminist and Marxist views, but race is invisible in that unit. I do a bit on anti semitism as context for the Middle East unit. The USA Civil Rights unit is popular with the kids - they do want to know.

My own children learned about apartheid from films - every now and again, we'd watch a film about things that I wanted them to know about. Same for India and British rule - I watched Jewel in the Crown back in the day and that was all new to me.

I'm 27 and I didn't do it at school.. in fact I had to google the word just now.. I did know about the segregation though but didn't know it was called apartheid. We did learn about segregation in America though.. Rosa parks etc

If a 16 year old has a parent in their 30s it is quite likely the parent doesn't know much about it either. Kids access news differently today - via social media. They will know all about climate change, LGBTQ, BLM as these are all relevant to them. Whilst it is important to know history of apartheid sadly a closed curriculum does not allow it.

This kind of thing is the sort of knowledge parents should be imparting to their own children. How on earth can a child get to 16 and NEVER have been made aware of the manifestations of inequality by his own parents? What the bloody hell do people talk about with their kids

Lots of things - the trans issue, sporting issues, politics generally, Brexit, Roman emperors, languages.

But not apartheid. Get off your virtue signalling high horse. As I said above, people take an interest in different things and are knowledgeable about different things.

It’s still quite recent “history” really so not a massive surprise it wasn’t immediately put on the national curriculum for history the moment it ended

Indeed. My aunt used to say that the things I was learning about in history (Berlin wall going up, Korean War, Vietnam) were current affairs for her! And now it's similar for me (Berlin Wall coming down, apartheid ending, 9/11).

I´m 47 and remember Apartheid as it happened, Mandela in prison and being freed, the world embargo on South Africa, rock stars boycotting the country. I had the CD of Johnny Clegg and Savouka. The song Gimmer Hope Johanna was about this. I grew up in Spain. A very good friend of my mum was from S.A. and I remember her telling us how scary that era was as you didn´t really know what way it was going to go. It was all over the news in Spain and worldwide really, so I am just a little surprised at people my age not having heard of it. Not so much at someone aged 16.

I lived in S.Africa during apartheid.
Moved to here. My friends in school only knew about it because I talked about the country I came from. They didnt know about it before.

My primary aged DC studied it during lockdown when we were home learning

I wasnt taught it at school, nor about the ward. I think we mainly covered the Romans! Same as geography,. we spent all out time learning about river deltas. Most of my knowledge of events comes from reading, watching tv and quiz programmes !. A 16 year old probably doesnt do much of these things.

nettie434,

Yes, the concentration on the American civil rights movement is a bit frustrating. It's very small beer compared with the anti-apartheid struggle.

I have committed the sin of not reading the full thread, but this is what worries me about the re-writing of history, especially for children.

Every story/drama now has liberated female protagonists and people of colour in important positions in the past . Drives me mad. I keep banging on to dcs that I can’t imagine why there was any need for women’s lib or an equal rights movement when everything was just hunky dory in t’olden days

I am South African but I would not necessarily expect Apartheid to be taught in schools here. Certainly, I doubt that UK schools would see South African history as particularly important. It's all HenryVIII and WW1/2 as far as I can see.

If Apartheid is taught, I'd expect it to be more likely to be as part of literature/art/film or perhaps in PSHE when discussing racism or other such issues. I'd hope that it IS discussed in those classes because it is an important example of systemic racism applied as part of a country's laws, but until the way history is taught in schools is overhauled completely, I don't see it as being something particularly high profile.

@ErickBroch

I am late 20s, south-east of England, never taught anything in history other than WW1 and WW2 basically. At GCSE I did medicine throughout time, JFK, American West.

I'm amazed you didn't do the Tudors. My kids seemed to do it for ages in primary and again at secondary. GC seem to be following the same path. I sometimes wonder if anything ever happened anywhere that wasn't all about the Tudors. Strangely Henry VII never seemed to feature much.

I don’t remember apartheid being mentioned at school (mid 30s).
I don’t think it’s bad or shocking for a 16 year old at all. As long as they’re interested in the world and will ask questions.
I think really for most of us when we’re at school we just know what was taught at school and then when we become adults and have more of an interest in the world we start finding things out. Obviously there will be the odd 13 year old who is reading history books in their spare time but that’s probably fairly unrepresentative.

@SVRT19674

I´m 47 and remember Apartheid as it happened, Mandela in prison and being freed, the world embargo on South Africa, rock stars boycotting the country. I had the CD of Johnny Clegg and Savouka. The song Gimmer Hope Johanna was about this. I grew up in Spain. A very good friend of my mum was from S.A. and I remember her telling us how scary that era was as you didn´t really know what way it was going to go. It was all over the news in Spain and worldwide really, so I am just a little surprised at people my age not having heard of it. Not so much at someone aged 16.

It's still a scary country! The likes of Mandela, Tutu and De Klerk prevented it from being a lot scarier.

I think history curriculum in this country is very poor.
Apartheid was current event for me and yes we were taught about it at school.

I was recently watching a quiz show and surprised that a young woman did not know about the suffragettes, she didn’t even know the word. My 12 year old knows about it.

@lightand

Dont know if it still happens. but History, Geography and Music have always been undertaught in UK schools in my opinion.

I think it is. I do agree that these have always been undertaught.

There's a massive lack of knowledge about so much expecially politics in all age groups (which can stem from lack of knowledge in history and geography

Probably doesn't help that history taught (anywhere, except maybe Germany) generally concentrates on "postive" history, so in Britian things like the famine in Ireland and how Britain were involved aren't known about (as it's not positive).

As for apartheid when I was in school it was news, not history.